Re: info scheme has no authority component, why?

> Indeed, the reg-name token in 2396bis seems to be targeting a different
> usage.  Whereas the RFC-2396 reg_name was a kind of non-host authority
> that could not have a port number, the 2396bis reg-name is a kind of
> host and can have a port number.  Maybe the 2396bis vision is not to
> provide for abstract registered naming authorities as described in
> RFC-2396 and info-uri-01, but merely to allow network entities (hosts,
> services, domains) to be named using more naming systems than just
> RFC-1123 hostnames.  Is that the intention?

No.  What the syntax allows and what a specific scheme uses are two
different things.  There is nothing wrong with a scheme that only
uses a subset of the available syntax, provided it avoids the
reserved characters that would indicate otherwise.  Moving reg-name
under host has the appropriate impact of reserving the ":" and "@"
characters for a specific purpose, but no effect on any URI that
might have been defined to use the old reg_name (which also reserved
those characters).  The result is simply less ambiguous to parse.

> On the other hand, if the intention of 2396bis is that reg-name can
> really be an abstract naming authority, shouldn't info: be using it?

The "info" scheme proposal misuses almost every single aspect of URI
syntax, philosophy, technology, and accepted best practice.  There is
no need for it to exist at all.  Yes, it would be better to use either
the generic authority syntax or the URN authority syntax for new URI
schemes that make use of delegated naming authorities.

....Roy

Received on Thursday, 11 March 2004 22:39:07 UTC